Peeling the onion — American Zombie | Blogger Jason Berry looks at long-awaited information from public records requests to the quasi-public New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), which spends half the proceeds from hotel taxes on CVB salaries. Berry goes on to claim that he has heard, but can’t yet document, that “CVB employees get paid a commission by specific hotels in the city to book rooms on top of their publicly-funded salaries.” We’ll see if that allegation about funneling tourists to favored hotels pans out. Meanwhile, the CVB contends it is a “very transparent” organization.

An ethics bill was indeed passed, but it failed to include most provisions that watchdogs had pushed for. During a conference committee between the Senate and the House, lawmakers stripped several amendments that would have required online financial disclosure, exposed “dark money” in state campaigns and required lawmakers to disclose financial interests in businesses that receive state contracts.

A bill to establish a world-class culinary school in downtown New Orleans is now waiting for final approval by the Louisiana Legislature. The bill is part of a larger measure that would beef up community colleges across the state. The Delgado Culinary School is a workhorse for New Orleans, providing trained cooks and kitchen managers in a city that may have more restaurants per capita than anywhere else. “… They’ve got a great school already. This [bill] would expand it, and other schools would play a part, including UNO and Tulane,” said Sen. Ed Murray, whose bill would fund the $9 million culinary school at the site of the defunct Artists Guild building on Howard Avenue. The school is envisioned to capitalize on New Orleans’ food reputation and draw in students who might otherwise go to world-famous cooking schools like the Culinary Institute of America or Cordon Bleu.

Dayton vetoes Teach For America $1.5M — Star Tribune | Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a $1.5 million earmark for Teach For America in an education funding bill, amid opposition by teachers unions that claim TFA undercuts a well-trained union workforce. “Dayton argued that an open competition for the funds should precede the biennial appropriation he vetoed.”

Facing officer shortages, a surge in homicides and unrelenting youth violence, Indianapolis police are turning ­toward community organizations more than ever to reduce crime by zeroing in on its root causes.

Seeking help with keeping tabs on the mentally ill, learning how to talk to teens and finding meals for poor families, IMPD is recruiting outside help to reduce the burden on its depleted ranks.

Despite progress, in the last 50 years we have retreated from an honest conversation about racial and economic justice, and have opted instead for mass criminalization and incarceration leaving many poor and minority people marginalized and condemned.

Mark Moseley blogs at Your Right Hand Thief. Until mid 2014, Mark Moseley was The Lens' opinion writer, engagement specialist and coordinator for the Charter Schools Reporting Corps. After Katrina and the Federal Flood he helped create the Rising Tide conference, which grew into an annual social media event dedicated to the future of New Orleans.